


lifting off deeper blues

by starvels (dinosaur)



Series: Cap-IM Bingo [9]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Confessions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, M/M, Missing Scene, References to Addiction, Relationship Negotiation, Suicide mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 13:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13952673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinosaur/pseuds/starvels
Summary: Steve didn't hit Tony, after he remembered. But, he didn't forgive him, either.Months later, they talk.





	lifting off deeper blues

**Author's Note:**

> a reworking of a similar idea from the first piece in this series, but not in the same universe, obvs. focuses more on the nature of perception and lost questions. 
> 
> definitely doesn't cover all the aspects of betrayal and emotional hurt in this sit (both steve's memory being erased by the illuminaughty in new avengers and steve punching tony for being complicit in it in secret wars), but attempts to untangle a few of them, with the idea that steve is at least as self aware as a crow lmfao. therefore, an au where steve doesn't punch tony yay.
> 
> for my cap-im 2018 bingo free-space: 'sorry'
> 
> title from hearts by flor

 

They should be in a grander setting, Steve thinks.

Then he thinks, that’s fucking self-important, that is. That’s the big chested superhero in him talking. Thinking that if he’s going to have an actual goddamn conversation with someone, it ought to take place in a field surrounded by bodies, with their way of life crashing down around them.

Steve Rogers, 5’4”, 95 lbs on a good day, wouldn’t think that.

It’s the thought of his own glare that keep him here. Tony’s isn’t enough, hasn’t been since. Since.

So here they are, at 5:40PM, on some banal Wednesday, sitting across from each other having the conversation they nearly broke the multiverse over. They've been going back and forth now for hours and Steve doesn't even know if they're any closer to resolving anything. But Steve's not much good at backing down from things, so. 

That’s just how it goes.

Tony’s bruised, in blue, breathing hard.

“I didn’t erase your memories, Steve.”

Steve tries to hold the thought of his own glare, can only think of the sound of Tony’s voice saying  _“Do it.”_

“You were a party to it, you fucking  _gave the word_  –”

“Tell me you would have, heard a word, a single word we said, after getting the idea of a bomb in your head. Tell me you would have honestly looked at all the options. Tell me,” Tony voice cracks down the middle, “That you would have believed in the best of us, still, like we needed you to.”

In the best of Tony, Steve knows.

A bomb is not an option, this Steve also knows. 

Quieter, like a leftover fear gone to dust, Tony whispers, “They would have erased me too, Steve. Then where would -”

“Don’t,” Steve says.

He doesn’t want to hear that. Steve focuses on the leather of the couch instead, the violent rolling landscape beneath Steve’s fingers that could so easily have been another violence. 

Steve’s thanked Carol, since. For stopping him. 

“That truth too much?” Tony says, cold, cutting. Defensive.

The air in Steve’s lungs fights him. He doesn’t want to think about Tony’s pain. Wants to stop thinking about it. Wants to not imagine causing it.

“Tell me,” Tony says again, finally, “That you don’t feel absolved by it being my fault.”

It  _is_  your fault, Steve wants to say.

_It’s all your fault and you hurt me to do it and I would have made the right choice, I would have done it differently._

“You didn’t even give me the dignity of choice,” Steve bites out, “You took that from me.”

“Steve,” Tony’s looking at him, head shaking a micro-fraction back and forth, “You'd already made your choice.”

“How the hell could you –“

“How could we not? God Steve,” Tony runs a ragged hand through his hair, “You were exactly this hard line. You’re always like this. You’ve always done this. You wanna say that you would have rather it had been you? To make the choice, to erase me, to try to save the entire multiverse on nothing but your bullheaded stubbornness?”

The couch squeaks under Steve’s hands.

Steve can’t say that.

He doesn’t want that, obviously.

They all rely on Tony to make the hard decisions. Not because they themselves can’t make them, but because they rely on Tony to bear the weight of the guilt of them, to take the cloth of regret and horror off their own shoulders and drape it in razors across his own back.

And when he slips on his own blood, they blame him for that too. Steve, Steve especially, maybe. The higher the hope, the harder the fall. 

But Tony didn’t have to –

Why did he have to –

“I wanted you to have peace from that,” Tony confesses, like Steve knew – knew he would. “From the weight, the  _guilt_  –”

“I know,” Steve says.

Wishes he didn’t.

Wishes he wasn’t thinking of  _Tony’s pain._

 _My own pain!_  His heart hammers at him. That’s the real. That’s why.

 _Say it,_  the Steve Rogers in his head pushes at him.

“I’m just.” Steve pulls his hands from the couch to clench them together, “Hurt.”

Silence for a moment. Tony’s big brain rolling something around, deciding the best probable course for survival. (Steve thanked Carol but Steve was already in the room with Tony and Tony saw and Steve saw and Steve _aches_  for so many goddamn reasons.)

“By us ‘taking your choice’?” Voice, cautious. 

Steve jerks his head to the side, “No, by, you.”

“Me.”

The slice of Tony Steve can see in his peripheral vision is worn, jagged like a too-used knife.

“Your part, that you would.”

_That you would hurt me._

Tony closes his eyes, like that’s too much to even look at. When he finally speaks, he sounds so tired Steve’s bones ache. “I nearly drank, so. So many times. To try an' forget it.”

Oh, Steve thinks.

What a terrible thing to be a comfort.

Of anything, anything, Tony could have said  _I almost_  to, this is the one. This is the one horrible thing that Steve can put stock in.

It’s the worst fact Steve knows about Tony; that death is little to Tony Stark. Suicide is a common, abusive flirtation for Tony Stark. Injury; its casual kiss. Sacrifice; its closest, oldest friend. But drinking,  _drinking_  isn’t invited. Over ten years now, and Steve can depend on Tony to not want to depend on this. Tony Stark doesn’t want to want to drink. He would rather do  _anything_.

Steve eases his chokehold on himself, stretches out his hands.

 _Ask it,_  Steve Rogers pushes.

“Did I dream you laughing at me?”

“What?”

Steve looks up. Tony’s eyes are huge, bowled over. He’s utterly thrown.

“Steve,” Tony says, urgently, as if Steve’s feelings are still worth all his time, his furious focus, “I have never laughed at you. Ever.” His hand twitches towards Steve and he clenches it back. “I would  _never_.” Quieter, “I threw up, after.”

It shouldn’t make a difference.

He watches Tony for a long moment. In the setting sun of the room, he’s laid bare to Steve. He trusts, finally, that he’s hearing the truth.  

It’s cruel, maybe the cruelest thing Steve’s had to do but he has to –

“What was worse, the incursions or,” Steve swallows, makes himself go on despite the brittle blanching of Tony’s face, “Or me?”

A red wetness stains Tony’s eyes.

Reliving.

Has Steve ever hurt Tony like  _this_? He thinks in the coming long, dark nights, his mind will try and find an answer. A pit in Steve’s stomach echoes the notion.

“Why are yo –“ Tony voice cuts out on him.

“Please,” the politeness burns like a lie.

“I – “

 _Why are you making me say this?_  Tony eyes say.

He’s crying, ugly, blotchy, painful tears he’s trying obviously to keep in.

“You,” Tony croaks out finally, like it breaks something in him.

Like it already did, over a year ago in a meeting room with just three words. 

Steve got what he wanted. Tony is hurt. Tony hurts for making him hurt. And he didn't even have to touch him. 

Eyes clenching shut, body curling in on itself, Steve thinks Tony holds himself together with nothing but the knowledge that no one else will. Ten years, Steve thinks again. Ten years and a mansion rebuilt too much too count, battles back to back, Tony Stark choosing him over and over, more lifetimes than most people could even read of and –

What do you do when someone confesses that you mean more to them than the weight of universes?

He inhales.

The Steve Rogers in his head pushes, pushes,  _pushes_  –

He apologizes.

“I’m sorry.”

Tony’s eyes shoot open.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” Steve exhales shakily, “that I hurt you.”

Flummoxed has never been a word associated with Tony Stark and even now, Steve uses it tentatively.

“Your turn, Tony,” Steve says, rolling the sound of his name over his tongue, a quiet pleasure he is done denying himself. He offers the smallest of smiles, a hope like a remembered truth.

Tony stares at him more.

“I’m sorry,” Steve prompts, softly, as soft as his unpracticed tongue allows.

“I – ” Tony chokes, stops, swallows, gathers himself. Steve lets him breathe. He never thought this would be a possibility, either.  “I’m  _so_  sorry. For everything. I never wanted – ”

_There._

“Shh,” Steve murmurs. “I know,” Even quieter, “Me too.”

Tony shakes his head. He’s all shades of February, electric eyes and probably broken wrist and bruised cheekbone that Steve didn’t cause, hopes to God to never cause and Steve wants to hold him. Steve is so tired, so tired of keeping himself distant and harsh.

He wants to hold him.

He wants to heal, with him

“Tony,” Steve says again and offers his hands, curled and red with his own fingernail marks. “Can I -?” he shuffles on the couch, the rivets he’d dug smoothing over.

Tony cries more, when he reaches back.

Steve wraps his arms around him and finds himself crying too.

It ought to feel momentous, maybe. It just feels human. Tony’s hand clenches into the fabric of Steve’s shirt and pulls him impossibly closer and that, that feels  _right_. A Wednesday. A red-blue Tony Stark that loves him down deeper than bone marrow. A space crossed not with a lunge but with a question, a confession.

 _Here we go,_  Steve thinks.

The sun sets.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't wanna waste love  
> Don't wanna hurt you  
> Hurt you  
> Lifting off deeper blues  
> We're gonna pull through  
> We're gonna let heart hold true  
>  _hearts by flor_
> 
> comments and critiques always loved <3 thanks for reading !
> 
>  
> 
> find me on the tumbls [@starvels](http://starvels.tumblr.com/) and this fic post [>here.](https://starvels.tumblr.com/post/171807567601/)


End file.
